Bullets
by kayleighchaos093
Summary: What if Mr. Clarke had come to the OR when Christina was away looking for Teddy? If he had found Meredith alone with Derek? Season 6 finale AU
1. Take a Bullet

"_There are things you aren't aware of being capable of doing. Sometimes it can be something bad, like cheating on your boyfriend. You always tell yourself that you're not that kind of person, but find out that you are. In the heat of the moment, we either become selfish, or selfless. Would you hide behind the person you love, become a coward, or would you take a bullet for them?" _

"Mere, you prep him, April and I are-are going to find Teddy, she-she should still be on this floor." Chirstina stuttered.

"Okay," Meredith said, ready to help Derek.

"Okay, everythings going to be fine, okay mere? I promise." her best friend assured her

Meredith didn't waste anytime. She turned to her husband. "Okay, they're going to find Teddy, its going to be okay. Its going to be okay, its going to be okay," she repeated, trying to convince herself as well as Derek. She was breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping through her system as she tried to organize her thoughts enough to figure out what to do first.

"Kiss me," Derek whispered weakly. Meredith looked at him, trying to decide if she could without hurting him. After only a second's deliberation, she leaned in and softly pressed her lips against his, trying to ignore the voice in the back of her head that told her it could be their last kiss.

The door opened, signaling Christina's return, but it sounded like only one person. Did that mean Teddy and her team were no longer on the floor? Meredith turned to ask Christina but was presented with something different all together.

It was Mr. Clarke, with his gun pointed at her. Meredith did her best to shield the man from Derek's line of vision, knowing that an accelerated heart beat would only pump the life out of him faster. She swallowed, her whole body shaking with fear and she reached behind her to clasp hands with her husband. If she was going to die, she wanted to die by his side.

"Move." Mr. Clarke demanded. Meredith shook her head, and she felt Derek's hand tighten around hers. She ignored his silent pleading and stood her ground. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily, letting tears escape and hoping this man wouldn't subject her to the same pain he was in over his lost wife.

"Move!" he yelled, taking a step closer and switching the safety off the gun. She just continued to shake her head, trying to figure out the best way to get Derek out of here safely. "the only person I want in this room, is Shepherd." He said, his voice shaking with rage or fear. Perhaps both.

He moved his gun so that it was aiming at Derek's head, and Meredith followed his aim, moving to shield Derek's vitals entirely. "Shoot me!" she pleaded.

"Meredith—" Derek protested weakly, but she ignored him.

"You want justice, right?" she asked him, making it up as she went. "Your wife died. I know what happened, Derek told me the story. Lexie Grey is the one who pulled the plug on your wife. She's my sister. Doctor Webber, he was your wife's doctor, I'm the closest thing he has to a daughter. And this man on the table, I'm his wife. If you want to hurt them, the way you hurt, shoot me. I'm your eye-for-an-eye." She was crying now, holding on to Derek as if her life depended on it, and maybe it did.

"Meredith," he whispered, and she felt him struggling to move. Quickly, she turned to face him and gently pushed him back down on to the table, bringing his fingers to her lips. "I'm sorry Derek, I love you." She said sadly.

Then, before she could turn again to face her death, she heard the sound of the trigger.

There was an odd sensation of ripping through her abdomen, and for a few seconds she felt no pain. She heard his footsteps fade and the click of the door closing as she took a few stumbling steps. She knew that she would probably bleed out quickly, a quick and painful death. Her hands moved to her back and she felt it was wet, which meant there was an exit wound. If she were optimistic, she would say it could be fixed easily without complications, but no one was on the floor but Christina, and Derek was her first priority. No one would touch her until Derek was safe.

As she watched the blood spread across her abdomen, she suddenly realized her baby was dead. Their baby. Meredith let out one sob, but forced herself to stop. She had to stay strong for Derek, whose eyes started to spill out with tears of horror.

"I love you," she whispered, reaching an arm up to caress his face, an arm that felt ten times heavier.

The door burst open again, but there wasn't much time for Meredith to even begin to wonder who it is.

"Mere!" Christina cried, and this time the sound of at least four other people followed her into the room. Meredith refused to look away from Derek's increasingly heavier, incredulous eyes. She used the last of her strength to pull herself to him, to kiss him one last time.

The world twisted in her vision, and her knees became weak and she started to collapse. But a pair of strong arms caught her before she could fall all the way, and she looked up at Doctor Avery gratefully.

"Take care of Derek… first," she insisted, while Derek moaned in protest. "Please," she begged Christina. "I don't want to live without him."

Derek attempted to protest some more, but he was quickly fading away.

"Christina!" Meredith yelled, and her best friend quickly sprang into action.

"Pack both sides of the wound with gauze, give yourself and IV." Christina ordered, as she summoned the anesthesiologist to put Derek completely under, while one of the scrub nurses assisted Meredith into the wheel chair they had used to move Derek into the OR. Someone handed her what she needed, while they moved to work on her husband.

"Where's… teddy?" Meredith asked, putting pressure on her abdomen with the thick cotton.

"She left, and so did Owen," Christina told her, then asking for a scalpel. Meredith couldn't watch them slice open her husband so she closed her eyes. The thing is, once they were closed, she didn't want to open them any more. The darkness was calling, and her last thoughts were that she was literally dark and twisty inside now.

And that she had saved Derek.

"_To take a bullet for someone can be figurative. You can take the blame for breaking the old lady's window with a baseball so that your best friend doesn't get in trouble again. Or you can literally look down the barrel of a gun, shielding the one person who matters most to you, and refuse to move. To be a surgeon, you have to have those kind of guts, to risk yourself to save the lives of others. Usually it doesn't put your life in jeopardy as well."_


	2. Obstacles

"_**When I was little, the one person I could always count on**__**wasn't my mother, or my father. It was my mom's father, my papa. He was always arguing with my mom that it was impossible for her to raise me when she spends a hundred hours in the OR a week. The thing about my papa was that he visited me whenever he could, and until I was about seven, they were the best days of my short life. He told me once that someday I would love someone with my whole heart, but that love is full of trials and obstacles. It was how we overcame these obstacles that defined who we were."**_

_~*GA*~_

Beep.

_She was running through the halls of the hospital trying to get to the catwalk. Every second she wasted, the more blood he lost. She was losing him._

BeepBeep.

_She ran by a window, and when she looked through it her heart stopped. He was back, on the catwalk once more, pointing a gun at his head. She ran faster._

BeepBeepBeep.

_She rounded the corner, just as she heard the gunshot. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, dramatic and intense. Her heart stopped, she felt the blood splatter across her face as she fell to her knees. The man with the gun turned his attention to her, but she didn't care as she dragged herself to her dead husband. She barely felt the bullet pierce her abdomen…_

"She's tachycardic!" Someone screamed, pressing the button for a crash cart. Christina Yang sprinted in, immediately taking control of the situation, trying to ignore the fact that her best friend was dying, and no one knew why.

Once the cart came in, she wasted no time grabbing the paddles, thankful that someone had already stripped Meredith's chest.

"Charging,"

"Clear!"

The shock jolted Meredith. She'd been here once before, in worse condition. Christina was determined to keep her alive for her husband, who was stable and due to wake up at any moment.

She looked up at the monitor, then back down. "Charge to two hundred."

"Charging,"

"Clear!"

Her chest jumped once again, and Christina breathed a sigh of relief. "Heart Rate steady, BP's increasing. Okay…" she set the paddles down, then sank into a chair.

"Doctor Yang," a familiar voice came from the doorway, reprimanding but kind as well. "Take a shower, get some sleep. I'll keep an eye on Grey for now, it's been twelve hours since they both came out of surgery, they'll be fine."

Christina turned her head to look at Doctor Bailey, raising an eyebrow. "Does it seem like she'll be fine?"

Bailey walked in, picking up Meredith's chart and scanning it and shaking her head. "She's a trauma patient, it's expected at least once. She's been through a lot, and—" bailey stopped, a look of shock and pity crossing her features. "She had a miscarriage a few hours ago?"

Christina sank lower into her seat. "Yeah, the bullet missed her uterus but not by much. Still…"

"She went through a lot," Bailey agreed, setting the chart down. "Does Shepherd know?"

Christina shook her head, watching the monitor in case Meredith went into tachycardia again. None of them had deserved this, Meredith had finally been happy and despite Christina's jealousy over her happy relationship, she knew she needed to stay bright and shiny Meredith, not return to dark and twisty Meredith. "She was going to tell him this morning, well-" she looked over at the clock, which showed it was nearly one in the morning, "-yesterday morning."

"It's a shame," Bailey said, shaking her head and placing a hand on one of Meredith's. "Get some sleep Yang. I'm going to check up on Shepherd, and when I get back you better be in an on-call room."

_~*GA*~_

Meredith moaned, moving a hand onto her stomach. It felt more like dragging actually, and her mind felt groggy and slow. She felt bandages under what she knew to be a hospital gown, and she suddenly remembered it all, everything.

"Derek," she moaned, trying to sit up.

"Oh!" someone gasped, and small hands were gently pushing her back down. "Meredith, you have to stay in bed."

Meredith blinked open her eyes. Her vision was a little blurry, but she recognized the fake blonde hair anywhere. "Lexie?" she mumbled, blinking furiously. "Where's Derek? What happened to him?" Suddenly scenarios that did not end well for her husband burst into her mind and she started to panic. She heard the monitor that kept track of her heart rate speed up.

"Shhh, Meredith calm down, Derek's fine." Lexie said, anxiety leaking through her voice as she tried to calm her sister. "Meredith, you'll have a panic attack, deep breaths, come on." She pleaded, and Meredith did her best to slow down. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes, concentrating on the fact that Derek was okay….

"What happened… to Mr. Clarke?" she asked, hating that she even spoke his name, the man who shot her and Derek, who killed their child….

Lexie hesitated, and Meredith opened her eyes to stare her down. She needed to know, she wanted the man brought to justice after everyone who had been hurt because of him.

"He… he managed to get around the police somehow, he's still out there somewhere. But don't worry—" Lexie said quickly, watching the monitor apprehensively, "Its on the news that Derek is, well, dead. He wont be coming back for either of you."

Meredith closed her eyes, they felt so heavy… "I want to… see him," she mumbled, but she was asleep before she could get a reply.

Next time she was awake, she felt better, but heavy, like she'd been sleeping for a very long time. No one was in the room with her, so she tried to sit up, ignoring the stabbing feeling in her abdomen. She reached to the drawer of the night stand and flipped on the tv, the news instantly turning on, the first thing she noticed was that it was Friday morning. Then-

"_The search is still on for Gary Clarke, who entered Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital Wednesday morning and took the lives of thirteen innocent people, including the chief of surgery and his wife Meredith Grey—" _she turned off the tv, breathing heavy and running a shaking hand through her hair. Her picture had been on the screen, alongside Derek's, claiming the both of them to be dead. Lexie had told her Derek was fine, but she needed to see for herself. She watched the door, which was open, waiting for someone she knew to walk by.

"Doctor Hunt!" She called, two minutes later. The man in question looked up from his clip board and smiled at her.

Owen Hunt walked into her room and glanced at the remote in her hand. "How long have you been awake?" he asked, glancing at her monitor just like everyone else who was in her room.

Meredith shook her head. "Not long. Look, I need to see Derek. They're saying he's dead on the news, please," she begged, trying to sit up all the way.

"He's not dead Grey, it's just a story." Owen assured her, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. "But if you think you can stay awake long enough, I'll ask Christina if she thinks you're up to it."

"Christina?"

"Yeah, she's your attending physician. Teddy took over Derek's case, but Christina did excellent with his aortic repair." Hunt's smile showed a hint of pride, and he reached up to pull off his green scrub cap, then running a hand through his bright orange hair. "I'll page her for you, but I have to get to the OR." He promised, pulling out his pager and with one last smile, he walked out of the room.

After a minute, Meredith got restless. She'd spent a lot of time in recover the past year or two, after drowning, then giving up part of her liver for her father. This was slightly more traumatic in her eyes, since her husband was in a similar room somewhere, instead of at her bedside. She struggled into a sitting position, and reached for her chart that was hanging on the end of the bed.

"Mere!" someone cried, and Christina was there, blocking her way. "What are you doing? You'll tear your stitches." Meredith gave up, silently acknowledging the tugging feeling on her stomach and lying back down.

"Why did Owen page me here?" Christina asked, of course she glanced at the monitor, which was starting to annoy Meredith. Why are they all worried about her? Derek was the one who was shot in the chest.

"I want to go see Derek," Meredith said, but Christina was shaking her head before she was even done. "Why not?" Meredith demanded. "It's been almost two days, I need to see him!"

Christina sighed. "Are you feeling dizzy or lightheaded? Nauseous? Cramps?"

"Cramps?" Meredith asked, knowing that wasn't on the usual list of post- GSW symptoms.

Her best friend put the chart on the end of the bed. "You had a miscarriage about an hour after you came out of surgery. It missed your uterus, so you'll still be able to have perfect haired chatty children, but…."

Meredith took in a deep breath, ignoring the fatigue and dizziness that threatened to drag her back to unconsciousness. "Can I just see him? For a little while?"

Christina watched Meredith for a few minutes, then sighed and left the room momentarily. She came back with a wheelchair that was equipped with an oxygen tank and banana bags. She moved the chair as close to the bed as possible. "come on," she sighed.

It took longer then Meredith believed possible to get into the chair. Everything was sore, but she just had to hold out until she got to Derek's room.

"Where are we by the way?" she asked, really looking at the unfamiliar walls for the first time.

"Seattle pres. Most of our patients were moved here or to the former Mercy West building." Instead of wheeling Meredith into the hallway, she went to a door on the opposite side of the room. Once opened, Meredith heard more beeping of monitors. She looked at Christina questioningly, who rolled her eyes. "An architectural fluke. There wasn't supposed to be a door here, and they usually keep it locked, but Little Grey stepped in when they moved Derek from the ICU yesterday. She thought it was 'romantic,'"

Meredith smiled at her sisters antics, but it disappeared when she finally saw her husband. She acknowledged that it was a good thing that he wasn't intibated, but it was still hard to see him like this. There were three other women in the room, and a small girl around the age of five. She barely noticed them, but knew they were probably Derek's sisters and a niece. One of them said something about coffee, and the four of them left the room.

When she was close enough, Meredith took one of Derek's hands in hers, remembering the last time they had held hands.

Then he moaned.

She watched as all the tiny things that indicated he was waking up happened. His breathing became slightly uneven, a little crease appeared between his eyebrows, making the scar from his motorcycling accident more prominent. She glanced at Christina. "Has he waken up yet?" Christina shook her head.

"Derek?" Meredith whispered, and he moaned again, his eyes fluttering open.

"Mere…" he mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Hey," she said, smiling behind watery eyes. "How do you feel?"

"Are you okay?" he asked instead of answering her.

Meredith nodded, "I'm fine."

"Good." He whispered, his eyes staying closed the next time he blinked. "Love… you."

"I love you too."

"_**I don't know why my papa thought he needed to give me love advice at the tender age of six. I don't think he knew he was going to get into a fatal car accident. But the thing is, even if I didn't understand him then, I do now. You know the strength of your love based on what you've overcome. Derek and I have overcome so much, it's only made us stronger. We can get through this. We can."**_


	3. Time

"_**Time. Sometimes there's too much, sometimes too little. Sometimes we wish it didn't exist, that we can stay suspended in the same moment forever, sometimes we wish we could fast forward and never have to experience some things. For a surgeon, it all freezes in the OR. The outside world doesn't matter, how many hours of sleep you got the night before doesn't matter, it all just doesn't matter. A surgeon is often happiest in the OR, because it means we can forget. And sometimes forgetting is all anyone can ask for."**_

_~*GA*~_

"Meredith, what are you doing?" Teddy Altman asked, walking into the scrub room and tying on her blue bird scrub cap.

Meredith scrubbed harder, trying to forget why everyone to pass through this room looked at her like she was a civilian, like a patient's visitor who insisted on assisting with a surgery. Meredith looked up through the window to watch the scrub nurses prepare the patient, fifty-eight year old Bryce Harman. "I'm observing a valve replacement, Doctor Altman." Her tone was snappier then she had intended. She was tired of fielding questions about her health. Sure she was in pain, and sure she wouldn't be able to stand the whole time, but she needed to be here, and as soon as Christina had cleared her to be discharged, she wasted no time with locating a pair of scrubs.

She knew she couldn't help operate, but she needed to get away from the too white walls, too white sheets, too white pillows and curtains and monitors of his room. She needed to escape the sight of him in pain while he slept because he refused higher dose of morphine, to get away from his pale skin covered in a layer of sweat. She was by his side whenever he was awake, but most of the time he was asleep, and she just needed to get away.

Last night she had had a dream that she was standing in her kitchen, looking out the window into the hospital, where she watched Derek negotiate with Mr. Clarke. _"Be extraordinary," _a voice had whispered behind her, and she turned to face her mother with a scalpel to her wrist, watched her pull it down fast, leaving a torrent of blood to pool on the floor, but the blood turned to water, and soon the room was full of it, and Meredith couldn't breath. She was drowning again. She heard the shot from the hospital on the other side of the window, and gave up. What was the point to life without Derek in it? She closed her eyes, and she was in the OR, holding Derek's hand feeling the bullet tear into her abdomen….

"Doctor Grey? Meredith!"

"Huh?" Meredith asked, trying to tear her eyes away from the operating table in the center of the room on the other side of the glass. Was this the same OR? She couldn't remember….

"I don't think this is smart Meredith. You were shot not three days ago. Maybe you should go be with your husband, you can come in the OR in a few days." Teddy said sympathetically, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She kept staring at the table, and then she slowly pulled her hands out of the tub, turned around, and holding them up she stared at the woman across from her. "Do you know I was practically raised in this hospital? My mother died here, I died here, Derek… Derek almost died here. Izzy had cancer, George died here, my _baby _died here. I need to be in this OR. Out there sucks. Out there gives me the dark and twisties, and I want to be bright and shiny, as bright and shiny as possible right now, I need to do that for Derek, but I cant do that when out there reminds me of everything I've lost." She was breathing heavy from her rant. Teddy looked extremely confused, and when the door opened, she looked relieved.

"You paged?" Christina asked, looking in, then she sighed. "Meredith, what are you doing?"

Meredith opened her mouth, ready to repeat her entire speech, but Teddy got there first. "Something about the dark and twisties, and people dying and being bright and shiny; I don't know, I was just trying to help. Please, just… please. I have a double valve replacement to do, and I cant do it if I'm worried she's going to pass out or something." Teddy said, turning to scrub in.

Christina grabbed Meredith's arm and dragged her out into the hallway, ignoring her protests. "Look, I know you think the best place for you is the OR, but as your person, I'm telling you that if you go in that room you will regret it." Christina said, rolling up the sleeves of the maroon shirt she had on under she scrubs. "I haven't cleared you for surgery, and I know you are on pain meds, but you know as well as I do that standing even for as long as you have been now is not good for you."

"But—"

"I haven't even been in the OR yet Meredith. _Me. _So just… just go be McLove sick with McDreamy for a few weeks. No surgeries for at least two." She grabbed a spare wheelchair that happened to be sitting next to them, popped it open, and pointed at the seat. Meredith just stared at her with her mouth open, incredulous.

"Christina!" she cried, unmoving.

"Meredith!" Christina mocked, raising her eyebrows. "I'm your doctor, and I'm telling you to get in the damn wheelchair!" When Meredith still hadn't moved, she sighed. "Now!"

_~*GA*~ _

"Derek, I know that you're all… drugged up, but could you please use your McDreamy powers to make Meredith stay out of the OR?" Christina asked as she pushed a very angry Meredith into his room upon seeing that he was awake.

He turned his head to look at her, and she immediately lost most of her grumpiness, though there was still enough for her to shoot Christina an annoyed look. "Mere…" he said hoarsely, "You were… shot. You're not ready."

Christina scoffed. "Like that's going to convince her! When I said use your McDreamy powers, I meant guilt trip her into staying here with you. I can't be worried about her roaming the hospital and getting into trouble."

"Christina, I think you've made your point. I'll be a good little Meredith and stay." Meredith said, not looking at her, but instead taking Derek's hand in hers.

"I don't believe you," Christina said. "But you have a _thing_ tomorrow you cant miss, and if you know what's good for you, you'll stay put until then." Meredith gave Christina a questioning look. "You know, an appointment, in the west wing? A _thing _appointment?"

"Oh," Meredith said, turning back to Derek, but ignoring his confused look. "That thing."

Christina left after making Meredith promise once more that she would stay in his room or go home, knowing she'd do the former. As much as she hated this room, she hated the thought of leaving the hospital more.

"Thing?" Derek said, as soon as she was gone, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"How long have you been awake?" Meredith asked, pretending she didn't hear him, brushing away the hair that was sticking to his forehead. She hated seeing him so weak.

He shook his head. "Not long, it's hard to stay awake long though. What thing?"

Meredith shook her head, not meeting his eyes, a hand unknowingly traveling to her abdomen to hold the child that was no longer there. "Its nothing. I'll tell you later."

"Meredith," he said, raising a hand to caress her cheek. It look like it was a struggle just to do that. "I want to know."

"No you don't."

"Tell me."

"_**It's the uncomfortable moments people want to skip. Where you know you might hurt someone you didn't want to hurt, or watch them get hurt. But we can't really control time. Sometimes our problems follow us into the OR, and we have to deal with them whether we want to or not. Being human, with all the emotions and knowledge that entails, gives us the responsibility of dealing with the kinds of things less intelligent creatures don't care about. Conversations can be hard, even if they hurt the person you love. So why cant we all just be as carefree and ignorant as our pets?**_


	4. Truth

Authors Note: For anyone who's following my story, I'm attempting to update regularly, but I'm leaving tomorrow for a weeklong camping trip, so I won't update for at least that long. I do appreciate the comments people have left me, and I would love it if you guys continued with suggestions/comments/criticism. =]This chapter is slightly longer to hopefully make up for my time away.

~Kayleigh

"_**Truth. Simply put, it's a bitch. Whoever said the truth will set you free must have been wrong, they were wrong because it hurts too much, it hurts to see other people in pain, it hurt for them to know."  
**_"Meredith," Derek pleaded weakly as the pain meds started to pull him back to unconsciousness. He opened his eyes long enough to make her promise to tell the next time he woke up. She silently nodded and held his hand as he fell asleep.

Meredith thought long and hard for who knows how many hours. She was resting her head on the edge of his bed with her eyes closed. Her eye lids were so heavy they refused to open for a time, and the last thing she remembered before she joined Derek was the door opening.

"Don't wake here Nancy, the poor girls been through so much, just let her sleep." She recognized that voice vaguely, but she couldn't stay awake long enough to make a connection.

This time as she drifted off to sleep, she was standing behind Mr. Clarke, watching as Derek turned at the sound of April Kepner running in, then turning back to stare at the gun that shot him seconds later. Onl She silently nodded and held his hand as he fell asleep.

Meredith thought long and hard for who knows how many hours. She was resting her head on the edge of his bed with her eyes closed. Her eye lids were so heavy they refused to open for a time, and the last thing she remembered before she joined Derek was the door opening.

"Don't wake here Nancy, the poor girls been through so much, just let her sleep." She recognized that voice vaguely, but she couldn't stay awake long enough to make a connection.

This time as she drifted off to sleep, she was standing behind Mr. Clarke, watching as Derek turned at the sound of April Kepner running in, then turning back to stare at the gun that shot him seconds later. Only this time she was about eight months pregnant, and as Derek crumpled to the floor, she instinctively knew her baby had died inside her. She felt no signs of life, and she pressed a hand frantically to her hand searching for a pulse that was impossible to feel on normal circumstances.

"_You killed my wife." _Mr. Clarke accused of Derek, he took three steps closer, leaning down to press the gun to his forehead.

"_No!" _Meredith cried, running forward. _"Kill me, kill me! I'm his wife, I'm your eye-for-an-eye!" _Mr. Clarke turned to face her, but it wasn't Mr. Clarke anymore, it was her mother, with the gun pushed up under her jaw, finger on the trigger. Meredith tore her eyes away from her husband who was losing too much blood too fast.

"_Be extraordinary Meredith." _The shot echoed around the catwalk, and Derek started to bleed faster. There was so much blood, and her baby…. Her baby and Derek were gone.

"NO!" Meredith yelled, pushing away the hands that were grabbing at her, sitting up quickly and looking around. "No…" she whispered, trying to blink away the image of all that blood. Derek was looking at her like it was paining him to watch her, and she looked around the room, recognizing his sister Nancy and his mother. Mrs. Shepherd was gripping her wrists, and Meredith realized her face felt raw and torn at. Had she been digging her nails into her skin?

Derek struggled to sit up, and she reached out quickly to put a restraining hand on his shoulder, easily breaking through the grip his mother had had on her wrist. "No Derek, I'm…." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I'm fine."

"Meredith, every time you say you're fine, it's a lie. You might as well be saying the complete opposite." Derek said. His voice was still quiet, but he was talking easier, and that at least made Meredith feel a little more assured.

She shook her head, then flicked her eyes in the general direction of his mother, hoping he would understand. His eyes drank in her expression, as if there were words explaining everything covering her face. Then he reached up with one hand to cup her face, and she knew what he was asking for. She didn't particularly care that his mother was in the room. Meredith leaned in and gave him a kiss, which ended up slightly more passionate than either had anticipated.

When someone cleared their throat, and Meredith distinctly heard a small child say "eww," she pulled away, smiling slightly.

"Are having Dark and Twisties?" he asked her with a small smile, and she nodded.

"Yeah, Dark and Twisty Meredith is back." She shrugged. "Relapses happen."

Derek nodded, obviously trying to think things through. "Why don't you go find Christina? She's better for the Dark and Twisty Meredith,"

She giggled a little, and kissed him quickly on the lips. "I'll be right back."

"Christina," Meredith said, walking up to the computers at the nurse's station. The hospital was practically deserted, and she suspected it was because people were too afraid to come there. Normally this would peeve Meredith. No people meant no surgeries, but she wasn't working. Christina, however, was obviously in a bad mood.

She made a scoffing noise and stood up. "You lasted barely twelve hours. You could've at least used a wheel chair," But she didn't sound too annoyed. She turned to Mark Sloan, who Meredith only just realized was leaning against the wall drinking a coffee and eating a doughnut at practically the same time. "You owe me twenty bucks."

He sighed and dug around in his pockets, balancing his doughnut on his coffee. "Thanks a lot Grey."

Meredith looked between them incredulously. "You were betting on me?" she asked, leaning against the counter.

Christina shrugged, and snatched his doughnut. "Hey!" Mark cried, trying to get it back, but Christina had already taken a bite.

"There's nothing else to do," Christina explained morosely, sitting in a chair lazily. "And you were short a dollar Sloan," she snapped, slapping away his hand that was still fighting in vain for his doughnut.

Christina shuffled some papers around on the desk, then clasped her hands in front of her and, looking up at Meredith she used a fake, sincere voice to say, "Now, what can I do for you?"

"I have a problem," Meredith explained, and she was about to continue, but Christina jumped up, walked around the desk.

"Follow," she said, and Meredith did, the brisk pace making her stitches stab her painfully. It had been the luckiest gun shot wound anyone had ever seen apparently. It missed everything but muscle. No organs or main arteries. All there seemed to be was a lot of bleeding and ripped muscle tissue. Luckiest GSW, but it didn't feel like it to her. The trauma had given her a miscarriage after all, or, well, it could've been all that stress….

"Sit," Christina instructed for the second time that day, rolling a wheelchair towards her. Meredith didn't complain this time.

When Christina started to push her, she started to talk. "Derek knows there's something I'm hiding. But I can't tell him, can I?" she asked, looking up at her person.

"How should I know?" Christina shrugged, turning into the cancer wing of the hospital. "I didn't tell my baby daddy, and look where that got me."

Meredith sighed and slumped in her seat. "I know he has a right to know, but I don't want to tell him right now. But he's so worried. Then I had to go and be all dark and twisty even in dream land and make a fool of myself…."

"hah!" Christina laughed, shaking her head. "Like the dreams you were having when you and McDreamy got back together for the umpteenth time?" Meredith knew she was referring to the dreams she'd had after the house of candles, like the one where he died in a car crash.

"Worse," Meredith grumbled. "My mother's there, as if she needs to ruin this half of my life too." She closed her eyes and willed herself to think of happier visions that didn't involve her mother shedding her own blood for love.

Actually, the more she thought about it, she realized she had been willing to do the same thing. She offered herself to a mad man with a gun intent on killing her husband. She offered to be a replacement, even knowing she was pregnant.

"Oh God," she moaned, sinking lower into the wheelchair. "I'm just like my mother."

"Believe me Mere, you are no where near as heartless as Ellis Grey," Christina half reassured, half laughed.

"But I am," Meredith insisted, believing it more and more as she went. "My mom tried to break up Doctor Webber's marriage, and even though she couldn't do it, I did the same thing to Derek and Addison, only I won! Oh God, she's in the dirty mistresses club!"

"There's a dirty mistresses club?" Christina asked, intrigued. "Who's in it?"

"Me and Sloan," Meredith said offhandedly, still thinking about how much alike she and her mother really were.

"It takes two to break up a marriage Meredith," Christina rationalized. "Or in this case four."

"Four?"

"Derek, Addison, Sloan, and you." She explained, stopping the wheelchair at the next corner they came to. "Addison was the first to make the mistake, and at least you tried to give Derek and Addison a chance. Look," Christina said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail, "you can either tell Derek, let him comfort you in ways I never ever will, or you can not tell him, and settle for complaining to me for years and years until finally someday, surrounded by all your chatty perfect haired children, you cant hold it in any longer and he hates you for never telling him.'

Meredith raised an eyebrow at her for a second, and then sighed. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I am," Christina said brightly, moving back behind the chair to round the last corner. "And you can go tell him right now."

They were outside Derek's room, which was empty of his family as of now. Maybe he asked them to go in case she got back, or maybe they just knew….

"When did you become so wise?" Meredith teased her best friend, who gave her a slight glare and a head jerk towards Derek.

Meredith let out a big breath and pushed herself out of the chair. "Fine…."

He was still awake. Someone had tilted his bed us so that he was sitting up, and he was as far over to the left side of the bed as possible.

"Well that can't be comfortable," Meredith said, raising an eyebrow at him.

He smiled at her. "Well it isn't yet," and he patted the open space next to him in what was an obvious invitation.

"You know the rules as well as I do Derek," Meredith told him, wanting to join him so badly but knowing that jostling the bed with her weight could cause him pain.

Derek laughed at her. It was breathy and short, but it was the first time she'd heard him really laugh since… well, since before the shooting. "I enforce those rules Meredith. And right now I say that they are stupid rules and if I want to share a bed with my wife, I can." And he patted the bed once more, and it was impossible for her to resist.

"You are very persuasive," she murmured, getting onto the bed as carefully as possible. He immediately wrapped an arm around her, putting on a brave face in spite of the pain.

They just sat in his bed, holding each other for a while, and it felt so good to be back in each others arms, that Meredith had momentarily forgotten why Christina had gone through all that effort to be wise and uncharacteristically understanding and comforting. That is, until Derek broke the silence.

"Did Christina help resolve the dark and twisties?" he asked quietly, turning his head slightly to look at her.

Meredith shrugged. "A little,"

More silence.

"I was thinking while you were gone. You wanted to tell me something the other morning… is that what this is about?" as he spoke he entwined his fingers with hers and ran his thumb slowly back and forth across the back of her hand.

She just nodded, staring up at the ceiling, trying to get the courage to break the news to him.

"Do I still get dirty sex?"

It was such an unexpected question, she laughed. "When your better," Meredith promised, placing a kiss haphazardly on his cheek, then returning to her ceiling watch. This was the hard part, and it was coming sooner than she had expected. She wasn't ready. This was the hard part, and it was coming sooner than she had expected. She wasn't ready, but she knew herself well enough to realize that she would never be ready for this conversation.

"What is it you wanted to tell me Meredith?" He asked her quietly, gently turning her so that she would meet his eyes.

Meredith swallowed the lump again then before she knew it, the words spilled out. "I was pregnant."

The silence was still and air suddenly became hard to breathe as she waited in fearful anticipation for his reaction. His expression hadn't change, except for his eyes. They were calculating.

"Was?" he asked her after long moments, and she just nodded, but he still looked confused, like nothing could add up in his brain.

"Derek," she said fiercely, making his eyes focus on her. "I _was _pregnant. I only found out that morning, and I came up to tell you but… you were in a mood and I thought it should be special, you know?"

He didn't answer her question. Then, all of a sudden his face fell.

"Oh. _Was." _

"_**Truth's a bitch ninety nine percent of the time, and sometimes letting it go makes us feel better inside. Lean into the fear. If you don't take the next step, no matter how much it hurts, how can we ever move forward?"**_


End file.
